In the past years I have been on continuous learning paths in vegetarianism, nutrition, cookery, organic living, financial freedom, environmentalism and Buddhism.
There were so much that I have been taught and experienced.
As a good will to pass on the teachings of my great teachers, I set up this blog to share their wisdom and knowledge or to at least raise awareness of holistic wellness :)

Sunday, September 5, 2010

One of the very common misconceptions about gene is that
genetic heridity is something not within our control.

While this hold true to the extent where we couldn't choose our parents(--actually spiritually speaking, this is still argueable! but we are not discussing here :P) ,
not being able to choose our genes of preference
doesn't mean we can't control the outcome.

To take obesity as an example,
there are indeed genes that make one inclined towards obesity,
but having such genes doesn't mean one ought to be obese.

The proper way of analysing this issue
is to adopt the concept that
it's always multiple factors contributing to an outcome (so as disease).

While gene remains one of the major factors,
diet, exercise and environment (e.g. social culture)
are also important factors contributing to obesity.
As long as one of those many many factors is interfered,
obesity will not happen.

It's not very wise to just put all blames on genes and
quickly claim that one couldn't do anything to reverse a health condition.
(I exactly hear this very often among my relatives and friends who
kind of give up on their health problems, and use "gene predisposition" as an excuse
to go back to white rice,meat, cigarrettes, alcohol and inactive lifestyle)

The same applies to myopia (short-sightedness).
Many people naturally bear the myopia-susceptible genes.
But, it doesn't mean that if both parents wears spec,
the child is bound to wear spec.
If the child is brought up in a padi field, with little view blockage
in their living environment (cf. high rises in cities),
or if the child is banned from playing video games/computers and watch TV every day,
there will be little chance the child needs to wear glasses.

Treatment and prevention of many degenerative diseases/health conditions,
are actually (or supposedly) not that difficult (theoretically!).

As we could see from the above two examples,
the outcome of a disease is contributed by many factors.
As long as one of the factors is removed,
the outcome could be totally different (cured, or severity tamed).

If one would extrapolate such a strategy to treat/prevent a disease,
one may discover that cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, allergy etc..
could also be controlled.

The difficult part actually lies in
whether one is determined to eliminate one of those factors.
In other words the true hurdle happens to be human's attachment to their comfort zones
(ie lifestyle, diet, environment) and
hence the unwillingness to change...